Author: tincantravels

So we were now in Ontario,Canada. Up until now our travels have been centred around the central premise that we were exploring the USA and now we were, in the veritable blink of an eye, in another country altogether. When you call the island nations of either UK or NZ home, entering another country is not so easily achieved. It involves some moderate-major travel organisation, which at its very least is taking the train through the Chunnel to France, but for us usually involves the tediousness of air travel. We had arrived with only a few nights pre-booked and no real plan for the next eight weeks. This ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ approach to travel has worked splendidly for us before, but out of season. Here we were, in the middle of school holidays, in a country that has very short summers, competing for campsites with a nation that loves to camp, in a camper’s paradise. We would need to get organised fairly quickly.

We stopped in at tourist information to get some maps and then found our way to the first of our camping options for the night, neither of which were pre-bookable and both on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis. This one was just outside Fort Frances, the town we had arrived into, in a riverside town park. The park was huge, but the RV parking was limited and at very close quarters. There was one space available, but it didn’t look very inviting. The whole place was dreary in the continuing rain and we weren’t feeling it, so we drove on. Our second option was about 30 km down the road in a small village called Chapple, which had advertised a tiny town RV park with only five sites.

We headed there, with fingers crossed. It was lovely. By the time we arrived the rain had stopped, the sun was shining, the park had only two sites taken, was right on the river in a park-like setting next to the village hall and we were feeling very glad that we had not settled with the first place. And, it was free!

As we were setting up we could see that there were tables and decorations for a big formal party being set up in the village hall. Possibly it was going to be a noisy evening. We figured that we could deal with some late night music but in the end, didn’t have to as the party was going to be the evening after. Things were just getting better and better. The river in question is the Rainy River that we had crossed earlier, so we spent our first night looking across it back at the USA.

At this stage, the only apparent differences between the two countries were: the different flags fluttering, the colour of the money, everything printed in french swell as canadian, the accents, the presence of the metric system, the high price of fuel and the widespread provision of recycling bins. So subtle.

Chapple boasted a museum, which was closed and a cafe that was open for breakfast and lunch. Having had a complimentary night’s accomodation courtesy of the town we though it only polite to spend some money in the cafe, so we had a very delicious and hearty fried brunch on the way out the next morning. It must have been good, there was even a local cop there, and a lady with a large bucket of strawberries. Random.

In the morning we drove north towards Kenora, a town on the north-east of Lake Of The Woods. This is a 4000 square mile lake, containing over 14,000 islands, that spans the border. Two years ago we stayed on the south-west of the lake in the Minnesotan town of Warroad. A fishing trip on to the lake can see you crossing the border on purpose, or by accident, so potentially passports are needed. Customs are pretty relaxed here though.

The town of about 15,000 sees its population double in the summer as lots of people from the nearby city of Winnipeg have holiday cottages here, or come to camp. The town’s original name of Rat Portage was changed in 1905 after the it amalgamated with two nearby settlements of Keewatin and Norman. The new name of Ke-No-Ra was also a diplomatic amalgamation, but I prefer the ratty moniker personally. It is a very pleasant place, seemingly enhanced by its tourism rather than overwhelmed and altered by it. We had booked five nights here in a municipal park on the on the outskirts of town, but it couldn’t accommodate us until Sunday evening, so we had a single night in another park about 15km down the road. This was mediocre. In the morning we were eating breakfast outside and one of our neighbours spotted our large jar of Marmite on the table (I might have bought this online a few weeks ago at great expense having failed to find it in any stores in the Mid-West)

“You two must be Brits!”, she yelled across the way in a northern British accent. Guilty, we admitted. After a few moments of chatting we had discovered that, although now a naturalised Canadian, she was from Warrington, less than 30 mins drive from where Nick grew up in Wigan, had spent many an evening in a pub called The Cherry Gardens, his old local and had been at Liverpool University at the same time that I was. That is the power of Marmite, Folks.

After our long and taxing twenty minute drive, we arrived in Kenora. Filled with fuel, (Crikey Moses, it is about twice the price here as it was in the States. Suddenly Big Dave’s 9 mpg is less amusing.) stocked up at the supermarket (ditto for price shock) and found camp. This was on the lakeshore, although we were in the cheap-seats without a view around the back and it was only 2-3 km from the town centre, an easy cycle. The camp had a little beach and a floating boardwalk which annexed off a safe swimming area, a big advantage in here where everyone is charging around at great speed in their motorboats. It was pleasantly warm, not too hot and humid and we were looking forward to not moving for a few days.

The town had a great waterfront boardwalk with a big open-sided permanent marquee. This plays host to a large weekly market which had mainly craft type stalls with a few vegetable and smoked meats thrown in for good luck. We wandered around, but have perfected the art of not buying anything. No space for clutter…The town also has a small museum which had an exhibition of First Nation ‘jingle dresses’. These are hand made by the native women, adorned with cones of metal (made historically out of the lids of metal chewing tobacco tins) that jingle as they perform traditional dances during pow-wows. The first ones were made around 1900, after the idea and design came to a tribal member in a vivid dream. The museum also had an exhibit dedicated to the town’s ice hockey team, the Kenora Thistles. This ‘all locals’ team holds the distinction of being the team from the smallest town ever to win the coveted holy grail of ice hockey, the Stanley Cup, which it did in 1907. We found a good lakeside spot for cocktails and seaplane watching. Nick got a haircut and bought some new pants (underwear not trousers, Americans). We swam in the lake, sat on the beach, had lots of BBQs. There were tame deer in the camp.

On the last day we cycled to a nearby hiking area, stopping at a big fish on the way.

In the trailhead carpark we met a local man who had just seen a black bear and her cubs on the trail. We vacillated for about ten minutes about whether to continue and decided to go ahead, with bear spray at the ready. There were plenty of people ahead of us who seemed unfazed, so we felt partially reassured. We didn’t see them, and no-one else we met had seen them. Only one big bear poop in the middle of the trail was evidence that they were there and that the chap in the carpark wasn’t pulling our leg. In the end our main mistake was taking our bikes as we ended up pushing them half the way around the mostly un-cycleable 5km trail. An unexpected upper body workout was the positive spin on the experience. There were very dark clouds looming and thunder booming as we cycled home at a fair lick, trying to escape getting wet. We didn’t make it, and got pretty soaked in the last 500m home stretch.

The other thing that we had to do whilst we were here was address the trip planning situation. We were battling the summer vacationers who had booked their campsites months and months ago, snaffling all the good spots. Nick put in some long hours on-line and managed to plan a route, cool places to stay and jolly stuff to do. An itinerary is now in place and we can relax and enjoy the ride, rather than have to boondock in lay-bys. We have a good mix of town and country stops, sublime and ridiculous activities and another seven weeks of Canadian fun.

15th – 19th July 2019

After a nondescript night in our post-Chicago ‘recovery park’ in Union, Illinois (90F, pool, laundry, early night) we began our dash to leave the country. I won’t bore you with the numbers, but due to our extended travels in the USA over the past three years we are in danger of becoming a ping on the radar of the American tax man. Something we can do without. So, to Canada we needed to go, and to give us enough days back in the USA at the end of the trip, we needed to be crossing the border on the 19th of July. By our leisurely travelling standards this involved a veritable picking up of skirts and getting a wiggle on. It was 750 miles to the border from Union and we had given ourselves four driving days to do it. We could easily have done it in two: I said a wiggle not a hustle.

The first of these days took us from Union to Portage, Wisconsin, America’s ‘dairy-land’ state. It produces a lot of milk, and some surprisingly good cheese as we discovered. One of these was based on a Finish cheese in the style of a halloumi. They called it ‘bread cheese’ and marketed as a cheese that, once cooked, could be used for dipping or as a base for some other tasty treat. Only in America… Our cheese of note was a sheep cheese. Does that count as dairy??

Our journey started with a cross country zigzag that seemed to defy the compass until we successfully met up with the interstate highway. We bashed up to our next camp which was at the top of a small ski field hill rather grandly titled Cascade Mountain. The camp was grassy with lots of trees and fairly empty. We had a choice of sites, all fairly uneven and sloped, but after 10 minutes of ‘discussion’, multiple repositionings and the implementation of several levelling blocks we were sorted. It was, surprise, surprise, hot again and we beetled off to the inviting looking pool. This seemed to have be unofficially declared the private domain of a large rowdy family who had settled in for the duration and annexed the whole place. We dunked in a corner at the deep end to cool off, but the shrieking and ‘let’s-make-this-into-a-wave-pool’ game chased us back to chez nous before long.

Day two of our northerly dash took us to a place called Chippewa Falls which is still in Wisconsin. It was the birthplace, in 1925, of Seymour Cray, the father of super computing. The town hosts the Chippewa Falls Museum of Industry and Technology and boasts an unparalleled collection of Cray Supercomputers, with at least one example of every model. Fantastic random tourist attraction for the nerdy traveller. It was closed whilst we were here. Chippewa Falls also, despite the name, was strangely devoid of any waterfalls to go and look at too. Never mind. We set up and I amused myself with the fun job of draining the tanks and doing a full wash out. Oh, the highs and lows of camping…

Day three and we were on our way to Duluth, Minnesota. We had factored in a two night stop here as we had had spent four days here in June 2017 on our way ‘across the top’ and had loved it. The RV park is in a marina, the summertime sites being the hard standing storage for the boats that are hauled out for the winter. A fantastic duel purposing of space. It also makes for great views and interesting comings and goings, if you like boats, that is. The town is right in the south-west corner of Lake Superior, and is one of the busiest inland ports in the world.

It has an amazing lift bridge that rises numerous times a day to let through all sizes of boats including some 1000ft monsters. Claxons sound, bells ring, traffic is stopped, the whole span rises horizontally, the boats pass, horns are sounded in thanks. It is a cacophony of sound, and happily doesn’t happen much at night as we were parked only 100m away. The town has that vibe that only a waterfront can bring and a cool regenerated area in the warehouse district near the bridge.

This includes a waterfront brewery that we might have found ourselves at a couple of times over the 44 hours that we were here. The waterfront bike/walking trail that had been so lovely on our last visit was a shadow of its former self and it transpires that later in 2017 it was savaged by two separate storms, ripping up the boardwalk and walkways. Again, when passing through a place like this on a warm, sunny, benign summer’s day it is easy to forget that winters can be brutal in this neck of the woods. Other things achieved here? I got a great haircut which was also remarkably cheap, two qualities oft not associated with each other. We broke out the bikes and cycled down the narrow peninsula near us to find a beach for a dip in Lake Superior, which was surprisingly warm. As we were sat on the fairly narrow beach two policemen came past on quad bikes, patrolling for bad behaviour and alcohol. All jobs have ‘the rough and the smooth’ I imagine for a cop in the USA, it doesn’t get much smoother than that.

After Duluth it was the last stretch before the border. On the way we procured an oil change for Big D and arrived at the border town of International Falls, Minnesota at lunchtime in the pouring rain. Was this the USA mourning our departure…?? We ate our picnic lunch in a petrol station carpark (all class, I know) and then, fortified, headed to the border. The border between the USofA and Canada is the longest land border in the world, don’t you know. Here it is demarcated by the River Rainy, over which there is a toll bridge, just to extract those last few US dollars before you leave. On the Canadian side of the river the road arrives in the back-blocks of a factory complex which I think is actually a paper mill and the short queue of vehicles wound its way around the buildings until we got to the immigration/customs booths. No so much a grand gateway border crossing, more of the cat flap variety. It was very informal with no paperwork to complete. Did we have any merchendise? No. Booze? Yes (A trifle more than we declared.) Cannabis products? No. Guns? No. Where did we live and when were we leaving to go there? Tricky. We stuck with NZ, given that we are travelling on those passports, leaving to go back to the USA in 8 weeks. (Immigration officers get a bit suspicious about the homeless and we didn’t even mention our joblessness.) We were granted admission and were instantly coughed out onto a street in Fort Frances, the town on the Canadian side. It was still raining and we were in, but more importantly, we were out of the USA.

12th – 14th July 2019

As we headed towards Chicago we took a modest detour to visit the architectural wonder that is the Farnsworth House. Fans of mid 20th century modernist design, like my husband, might already know of this small gem of a weekend retreat located about an hour from the big city, in the town of Plano.

It was designed by renowned German born architect Mies van der Rohe for a Chicago nephrologist, Dr Edith Farnsworth, the project spanning the lean post war years 1945 to 1951. It was cutting edge design, simple yet elegant, a single roomed floating glass box on the banks of the Fox River. It is a seminal piece of work, but perhaps a classic example of both the ability of an architect to push their thirst for artistic form over the client’s parallel need for function, and also to extend their client’s budget into the zone where cordial relationships degenerate into legal battles. It was a sweltering greenhouse in the summer, had no closet space, woefully inadequate roof drainage via a single internal downpipe and went hugely over budget. Dr Farnsworth’s peaceful retreat was never quite the perfect idyll that it may have been. Soon after she moved in a new state park was created just across the river from the house requiring the nearby road and bridge to be upgraded to accommodate the increased traffic. To do this the state of Illinois appropriated 2 acres of her land, making the house visible from the road and noisy due to increased traffic. She was very upset by this. Architectural snoopers also used to trespass onto the property for a closer look, often to be found faces up to the glass as she opened the curtains in the morning. This was disconcerting. In 1972 she sold the house to a rich British aristocrat and property developer, Lord Peter Palumbo. After 31 yrs of ownership, and some serious money spent on upgrades and repairing flood damage, he sold it at auction in 2003. After some tense bidding the house was bought by a consortium on behalf of The National Trust for Historic Preservation and is now a museum, saving it from potentially being uplifted and taken away. We took a tour and spent the whole time discussing amongst ourselves how we could tweak the design if we were to build a replica. It was gorgeous.

We jumped back into Big Dave and rolled on. The closer we got to Chicago the heavier the traffic got. It was a Friday. There were as many people going to the city as leaving. In retrospect it transpired that there was a weekend of baseball games and ‘Taste Chicago’, a food festival. It was going to be busy. The highway was chock-a-block, but we eventually arrived at our first destination: a place to park Big Dave and Tin Can. About 3 miles from downtown Chicago there is a big events and conference centre complex called McMormick Place. It has huge parking lots, including one where all the trucks for the events centre can park. Here, for a modest $35 bucks a day, you can also ‘dry camp’ in an RV if you hadn’t already gleefully booked a nice hotel in the heart of the city for the weekend.

We parked, grabbed our bag, called an Uber, and headed to our hotel, The Radisson Blu Aqua. (Apparently Lady Gaga used to own the penthouse of this building, dontchaknow) At last, after six weeks living in the cramped quarters of Tin Can, we had two nights on dry land: A super king sized bed, a bath, quiet air conditioning. Bliss! We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, had a swim, a bath and waited for the arrival of our co-conspiriators for the weekend, Greg and Gigi. These are our friends who live in Connecticut and who were flying up for the weekend from New York. By 7pm we were all sat with drinks at the hotel bar, catching up and planning the weekend’s fun.

For fun, read mainly eating and drinking, obviously.

That evening we sampled deep dish pizza ‘pie’, Chicago style, at the highly recommended local institution, Pequods. By the time we ate (after an Uber ride, waiting 45 minutes for a table, several drinks, and then waiting 50 minutes for our pizzas to cook) it was 11.30pm and we were all starving and ready for our beds. The unanimous opinion amongst our council of four was that deep dish style was okay but not as good as thin crust. Too much bread, it was overwhelming. We ate it though. We would have eaten dead lizards marinated in crude oil by that stage.

In the morning we strolled through downtown and had brunch in a busy, popular spot called Beatrix. This was very good and they did some quirky dishes which included some actual real vegetables. Practically health food, although the second doorstep-sized piece of toast saturated in melted butter and honey might not have been strictly necessary. Much replete we decided to partake in one of the many boat trips that leave from the lower river. Ours was a combination of a cruise up the river with a commentary giving information about all the beautiful and notable buildings, then passing into Lake Michigan. Little known to any of us, there is a big lock separating the river and the lake. This has been necessary since they dug the river out in 1936-8, lowering the water level by 2-5 ft compared to the lake. This was to reverse the flow of the river and keep all the dirty water out of Lake Michigan which supplies the city’s drinking water. The lock can accomodate up to 100 vessels, making it the 4th busiest commercial lock in the nation and the 2nd busiest for recreational craft. The commercial vessels have priority to enter the lock and then the small boats and jet-skis get the go ahead to pile in and fill the gaps. It was organised chaos! The trip out to the lake gave a good view of the cityscape and all the sky scrapers.

The tall, the ‘previously-the-world’s-tallest-building-until-someone-else-finished-their-even-taller-building-two-weeks-later….Rats.’, the ‘mine’s-taller-than-yours-because-I-put-a-taller-pylon-on-top’, the ‘tallest-building-in the world-designed-by-a-girl….’ And so on and so forth. It is, for all that, quite a magnificent city. The downtown area was clean and pleasantly devoid of too much homelessness and pan-handling. The river was a pretty aqua marine colour and a hive of activity of boat tours coming and going, water taxis buzzing up and down, cruising rental boats adorned with the bikini clad (girls) and the naked chested (guys) and shoals of kayakers generally getting in the way of it all. The buildings are a fabulous array of the 1930’s gothic revival, art deco and the modern glass-clad monoliths. Even the Trump Tower was pleasing to the eye. There are a plethora of parks, green spaces, and cycle/walking paths. Sculptures, and play areas abound and any city with a waterfront and a marina is a winner in my book.

When returned to dry land we walked over to see Chicago’s most famous sculpture, Anish Kapoor’s impressive ‘bean’. It is very shiny and draws a good crowd of selfie takers. At this stage the boys felt they needed a snack and availed themselves of a ‘Chicago-style’ hot dog. This was a product of the Great Depression era and consists of sesame seed bun, a pickle spear, chopped white onions, tomato slices, bright green sweet pickle relish and an all-beef frankfurter. Traditionally it is accompanied only by mustard, not ketchup. It had too many vegetables for Nick’s liking, but did the job in keeping the wolf from the door. After this we all agreed that we had had enough sunshine for the day, called time-out and headed back to the hotel for some R&R. The evening brought with it another walk out into town, some cocktails in the open air bar of the stylish art deco ‘Gwen’ hotel and then dinner at a restaurant called Tanta. This served an unusual Peruvian-Southeast Asian tapas style menu. Interesting and very delicious and on this evening we managed to eat before it was nearly tomorrow.

On Sunday morning we had an early-ish brunch to give us time to have a final stroll before we had to go our seperate ways again. We headed through downtown, past a stretch of the famous Chicago ‘L’, the elevated railway, into the park and down to the waterfront, dodging the gazillion fellow walkers, cyclists and Segway tour members on the way. (Nobody, just nobody, looks cool riding a Segway).

It was a windless scorching day and the lake was flat calm and quite beautiful. This is stunning city in the sunshine. I hear it is a bit different in the mid-winter… An hour later, hot and weary, we arrived back at the hotel, called our respective Ubers, said our swift goodbyes and headed off in our opposite directions: Greg and Gigi to the airport and us back to Big Dave and Tin Can who were exactly where, and how, we left them. Which was nice.

We thrashed out of the city on a busy highway, the congestion made worse by people slowing to have a gander at the burnt-out truck on the other carriageway, which was backed up for miles. We had a surreal half hour of ‘watching’ the tense closing plays of two simultaneous neck-and-neck UK sporting finals: Wimbledon mens’ final and the World Cup Cricket final. This was by live text updates on BBC Sport, so a bit lacking in the visual impact of TV viewing, but beggars cannot be choosers and it was exciting nonetheless. (Disappointingly NZ lost the cricket…We were robbed….) We only had about 60 miles to travel to our next stop, a night in Union, just out of the clutch of Chicago’s ‘burbs.

6th – 12th July 2019

Illinois. It is the 6th most populous state in the US, with about 12.7 million people living here. Of those about 25% live within the city of Chicago, the USA’s third largest, and overall 65% of the population live in the counties making up the Chicago metro area. Illinois is Chicago, is Illinois. This really annoys the rest of Illinois, which otherwise is made up of many smaller cities and towns and vast farms growing maize and soy. There is also a lot of industry and natural resources such as timber, coal and petroleum. The state has been described as a microcosm of the country as a whole.

We were heading slowly to the ‘Big Smoke’ for a weekend rendezvous with good friends and had a few stops on the way up through the state to fill some time. First stop, three nights in a small city called Peoria. This is located on the Illinois river and is home to about 115,000 people and the well known Caterpillar brand. The wide variety of various Caterpillar equipment, diggers, bulldozers and dump trucks are all still manufactured in the town and surrounds and the company employs a lot of these people. It even has a visitor centre where you can take your boys who are fans of all things yellow. The city is also associated with the phrase “Will it play in Peoria?”, which originited from the vaudeville era and was popularized by Groucho Marx.

Our camp was a municipal park with a small marina on the banks of the river. As it passes through the city the river widens into a long lake with a seperate shipping lane, creating a safe boating area. Our camp didn’t usually have a good swimming beach, but due to the heavy spring rains that have affected all of the mid-west, the river/lake had burst it banks which had flooded all the waterfront tent camp sites, creating a rather nice place to soak. It was, of course, still very hot. This park has a large seasonal population, folks who rent a site for the whole summer. Interestingly a lot of these people seemed to be reasonably local and had all been coming for years. This made for a really tight knit group of people who were all friends with each other (despite differing views on the current President), and they were also really friendly to us. In fact, I don’t think that we have stayed anywhere where we have got chatting with as many people. Thank you for making us feel so welcome!

As soon as we arrived we off-loaded Tin Can. A task performed in 90F heat whilst we were hungry, a bad combination for good humour and marital harmony. We needed Big Dave liberated for a few reasons. One being our impending attendance that evening at Peoria Speedway, our first motorsport event in America, and another was to sort out the tatty decal on the front of Tin Can, a victim of an overly powerful jet wash last trip.

We set out for the speedway at 4.30pm and as we pulled out of the park it was 102F. For crying out loud. We made our way across town to the Speedway Park and took our place in the car park along side rows and rows of other Chevy pick ups. Big Dave could hold his own in this company. I am not so sure that we blended in so well. It was redneck nirvana and we were looking a tad Hampsons in the Hamptons. Happily it was a friendly/unobservant crowd who were far more fixated on following the progress of the cars.

The course was a small banked oval which seemed to have a swamp in the centre. The cars and ‘pits’ were on one side and the ‘grandstand’ (three sets of bleachers) was on the other. There was a beer trailer, a food trailer, toilets and zero shade. The entrance booth sold ear plugs and safety glasses: a clue as to how close up and personal this experience was to be. After a hot 30 minute wait, made bearable by a cold beer, the cars came out. It was noisy, dirty and fabulous! Each race was about nine laps long with the skill all being in holding a dirt drift around each end curve. There were several classes of car, all looking like variations of Mad-Max-Motors. There were a few spin-offs, a collision or two but no major crashes. We had no idea what was what, who was who, or which was which and we loved it. We stayed for about two hours by which time we had seen about half the races, our ears were bleeding, our faces were covered in track dust and we were starving. There was a popular BBQ restaurant just around the corner which was calling us.

The next couple of days we kicked up our heels and bashed about town in Big Dave, a bit like ‘normal’ people. We visited shopping centres, auto parts stores, a car wash and, of course, the Caterpillar Visitor Centre. Here they had a mock up of CAT’s biggest machine, the 797 mining dumper truck. It was massive. These cost 5 million USD each and can carry 400 tons per load. There is a mine in Canada running 350 of them… Caterpillar is definitely helping to shape/mis-shape our planet.

There were diggers that you could sit in and some simulators to play on too. Harder than it looks to shift soil, I can tell you. It was very interesting, with exhibits on engineering and the history of the company, including the digging of the Panama Canal.

Our chore of this stay was to sort out that old decal. Synopsis: 1. Reverse Big Dave under the front of Tin Can so his bed acts as a work platform. 2. Wash off 27 kg of dead bugs from front of camper. 3. Rinse. 4. Peel off old decal in thousands of small fragments. 5. Spray glue remover and spend an hour wiping off tenacious glue. 6. Get new decal, line it up, apply to wet surface, remove air bubbles. 7. Stand back and admire work. 8. Do all this whilst fielding friendly comments from the nearby audience of several of the aforementioned locals who were watching the whole show from across the way in their easy chairs, beers in hand. Performance Art?! 9. Cool off afterwards with dunk in flooded river. During this stay Big Dave also got some new bulbs in his headlights. We don’t often drive at night, but when we do, we previously couldn’t really see where we are going. Now we can, which is better.

Next on our Illinois journey was a place called Starved Rock State Park, a small state park alongside the Illinois river. It is a very popular park and sees a lot of visitors from the Chicago area as it is close enough for a day trip. It had an ominously large carpark at the Visitors Centre but luckily we were here mid-week so it wasn’t too busy. There was a large rustic lodge hotel on site and our wooded campsite was about 2-3 miles away. We had three nights and two full days here. On day one, despite the heat, we cycled to the park trails and set out hiking. There are about 13 miles of trails, taking in numerous mediocre sights such as lookouts, rock promontories and small canyons, most of whose waterfalls are dry at this time year. We planned to do about half of the trails on the first day and the other half on the next. But oh, it was so hot and humid. I haven’t been so sweaty and enjoyed a hike so little for a while. I was all for bailing and going back to the air-conditioned lodge for an ice cream at the 2 mile mark, but in a rare turn of events, Nick encouraged me to keep going. I was so sure he’d be turned by the prospect of an ice-cream. By the time we got back home it was 2pm and we were very weary, hungry and grimy. Lunch and a shower were medicinal and thus commenced a very lazy afternoon which bled into the next day. There was no way that either of us were going back out there. We did manage to create a breakfast sandwich (see below) and cycle to the Lodge to sit in the cool and tap into their internet for an hour or so.

So rested and refreshed on Friday and before the influx of the weekend campers arrived from the city, we packed up and headed in the opposite direction, into the heart of Chicago.

3rd – 6th July 2019

Apparently the 4th of July is a big deal in this country, and can get quite busy. If we wanted to find somewhere fun to be for these few days we needed to be organised and plan ahead. So a few weeks ago the chief travel planner ascertained that St Louis might be a place to be, if we could find a city RV park. More searching informed us that there was a park 2 miles from downtown and they had one space left. Bingo! We had a plan, and having left the Ozarks we pulled into camp on another hot afternoon. The park was started about 40 years ago when a couple bought a disused lot in the middle of gang-controlled depressed St Louis downtown. Every one thought they were mad, but good security made it safe, and now, run by their daughter, gentrification has enveloped it and they are sitting on a real estate goldmine. So far they have resisted the lure of the development dollar which means that many like us can have all the benefits of the city right on our camping doorsteps. It also had a very refreshing swimming pool, which was getting plenty of use.

St Louis, the largest city in Missouri has a fair few reasons why it punches above its weight, having only a population of 300,o00 in the city and 3 million in the metro area. The area was home to generations of Native Americans for thousands of years before the modern city was founded in 1764 by two French fur trappers and named for their king, Louis IX. A lost war against the Spanish saw it pass into the ownership of Spain that same year, and then back to the French in 1800. A small real estate deal called the Louisiana Purchase finally made it American in 1803. A busy few years for the flag makers. It grew quickly and by the 1870 census it was the country’s 4th largest city. It is now the 20th. It was a major port, sitting at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers (combining to create the 4th longest river system in the world) and trade, transport and manufacturing were major industries. People flocked to St Louis for work, and as a starting point for a new life, especially immigrants from Germany and Ireland, and its reputation as a gateway to the Mid-West was born. In 1904 the city was the first non-European city to host the summer Olympics and it hosted the World Fair. In the first part of the 20th century it saw a second influx of new residents during the Great Migration of Southern African Americans, also seeking a better life. Like many major cities, the mid 20th century saw changing fortunes in St Louis. Declining manufacturing, inner city depression, pollution, racial segregation and population decline all took their toll.

In 1965, its finer history was honoured by the building of its iconic arch, a symbol of this gateway status. It was a big and bold project. It stands 630ft/190m tall and is still the world largest arch and the Western Hemisphere’s largest man-made monument. Its size is magnified by the lack of sky scrappers in downtown St Louis and it still towers over the city-scape. Now the city is booming again.

The arch is far more impressive up close when you are standing beneath it looking up. It shines in the sunlight and it is uniform down to its feet which are planted firmly on the ground, without any pedestals or barriers. The small windows at its apex remind you that you can travel up to the top and look at the view all around. A view which is lacking one important thing. The arch. The riverside park in which the park sits is a designated National Park and this was the site for the city’s three day Independence Day festival.

The 4th of July started for us with a morning walk to find The Parade, a staple of the celebrations. There were lots of floats and marching bands but by 10am it was already 90F and very humid. The parade was a bit disjointed and spread out, and the poor bands looked hot, weary and wilting barely half way down the route. They were resting more than they were playing which unfortunately made it all a bit subdued too. We followed the parade route ending up at downtown, by which time we were weary and wilting too. We found a lovely cool (temperature) bar and had a couple of medicinal cold beers. A justified ‘elevenses’ on a national holiday, surely?

The festival served up drinks tents, food vendors, a few air displays and later, music and the obligatory fireworks. We watched an air display before heading back to camp via a pizza for lunch. This brings us to the adventure for the day…our first ride on e-scooters. The 2 mile walk home would have been easily achievable but it was so, so, so hot and humid! The streets were littered with scooters and we decided to take the plunge. They are brilliant! Admittedly one Uber would probably have been cheaper than two scooters, but what price the wind in one’s (damp, sweaty) hair and the rush of the near death experience of weaving through traffic and avoiding pot-holes?? We were hooked and used them several times over the next few days. I even mastered the art of carrying a large umbrella at the same time.

Early evening we scootered back to the arch to see what was happening. The music was in progress and thousands had converged with blankets and lawn chairs to sit on the grass and wait for darkness to fall and the fireworks to begin. The music was, of course, Country. We had one overpriced beer and listened to about as much country music as we could bear. Which was about one beer’s worth. I think we did well.

We extracted ourselves from the park, had a quick dinner at the same bar/restaurant that had revived us earlier that morning and went to a nearby hotel to see if there was space at their rooftop bar to watch the fireworks…No, nope, non, niet, nein. So as darkness fell we headed back to the arch and the crowds, ooohed and aahhhed at the impressive fireworks display and then had an even more exciting scooter ride back to camp in the dark!

The next day we had a general mooch around downtown. We started at a place called the City Museum, which is nothing like it sounds. It is more like a variety of bonkers installations created out of a bonkers collection of craziness, by a bonkers bloke, housed in a disused shoe factory. We queued in the baking heat to get in, and then realised that it was basically a bonkers playground for kids with tunnels, climbing frames, slides, stairs, crawling spaces and had no air-con. It was packed with young families and there was active encouragement for general rampage and mayhem. We lasted 30 minutes. I think we did well.

We recovered with a quart of frozen yoghurt each, and our next stop was the nearby Busch Stadium, home of The Cardinals baseball team. When he was about seven years old Nick’s grandparents had visited St Louis and brought him back a present of a Cardinals pin/badge. This was one of his childhood treasures and meant that he knew of St Louis from an early age. Not a common thing for a kid from Wigan. This meant that our trip here had also been a bit of a pilgrimage for him and felt a bit like completing a circle. Granny-Ann and Pop-pop, that one small gift had a big impact.

We really enjoyed our time here. It seems like a very liveable city and has a great self identity. People seemed happy and proud to call this place home.

29th June – 3rd July 2019

Until July 2017, most of the human population outside the Mid-West USA had no idea that a place called ‘The Ozarks’ even existed. This was when Netflix released the first TV series of ‘Ozark’, and suddenly this sprawling, narrow lake complex formed by the Bagnell dam and spanning the four states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas, was thrust into the international consciousness. Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) and family arrive out of season to a sleepy, hick lakeside town ostensibly near Osage Beach, Missouri and, well you either know the rest, or you don’t. (On closer research it disappointingly transpires that none of the filming actually happened here in the Ozarks. It was all shot on lakes near Atlanta, Georgia due to favourable tax breaks.) We decided to add the Ozarks to our journey route. Our original plan to be here for the 4th of July but we hastily re-planned when we realised what an absolutely mad, crazy, bonkers place it becomes during ‘holiday-time’ and there was absolutely no available spaces in any RV parks anyway. We managed to secure a rare spot at a lakeside RV park for 3 nights only, leaving before the big party of July 4th kicked off. The photo below is a stock image of a place called Party Cove. This is the sort of thing that happens in the Ozarks during the 4th of July celebration week. Oh, the horror!

We finally parted company with our old friend, the US 50 and, Ozark-bound, we had a one night stop at a park in Clinton, Missouri. It was mostly occupied by long term and seasonal inhabitants and near another large, overflowing recreational lake. The park had a small pool, which was a godsend given the relentless heat. As a completely irrelevant aside, the owner had a very cute puppy: a Bernadoodle. A poodle-Bernese Mountain Dog cross. (Look it up, Mrs J!) On our way to the Ozarks from here we took a very justified 20 minute detour to call into a recommended cheese shop. We spent a small fortune on a block of 12 yr old cheddar, which was worth every cent. It’s like a bar of ‘cheese-gold’ and very, very delicious.

We approached The Ozarks via a winding and undulating, narrow and quiet back road. When we arrived it was, perhaps fairly unsurprisingly, not the quiet sleepy holiday idyl that we had imagined. There was a two lane highway running through each of the built up areas, lined with strip malls, restaurants, apartment complexes and boating services. Whenever we caught a glimpse of the lake we could see that every available inch (2.2 cm…) of shoreline was lined by floating boat docks. This is a serious Vacation Destination, and boating, floating, fishing and being dragged around behind a boat were the recreational activities of choice. Oh, and drinking booze too, obviously. Our camp was out off the fray but we had no plans to off-load Tin Can. We were content to hang out out at our waterfront niche, far from the madding crowd, happy in the knowledge that there was a waterfront bar/restaurant that was only 1.5 miles (2.4km) away. Walkable!

Our camp was on a small cove on the main part of the lake. The lake is long and thin with long, thin adjoining arms, all looking pretty similar. Lake navigation is aided by designated ‘mile markers’ which helps many an otherwise disorientated boater find all the various waterfront restaurants, fuel docks and home. We were at mile marker 3, being three miles from the dam. It goes up to about mile marker 67. There is a lot of lake here. Our camp had some floating docks and we discovered that there were a few boat rental companies that would deliver a boat here. Perhaps we could rent a small boat for a half day to do some exploring? After a few phone calls we changed our minds. We could either hire a small boat for a minimum of 24 hours, at great expense, or a large 14 person capacity pontoon party barge for a half day, at great expense. We settled for a boat-less Ozark experience, swimming off one of the docks in our cove.

Every day, one of the older resident ladies in our camp grabs her floating chair, puts a life jacket on her labrador, and takes it for a swim up the cove. It pulls her along on at the end of its rope and along the way she stops and natters to all her friends who are out on their docks. A perfect solution for how to exercise your dog in the heat! Apparently one day she fell asleep in her chair and the dog towed her all the way out into the main lake. People on the shore saw her and mounted a rescue mission, fearing that she had died. Only in The Ozarks.

We decided to walk to the nearby bar on the first of our three evenings here. The road out of the camp was too steep to cycle. We embarked on the 1.5 mile journey at 6pm. It was still 90 F. By the time we got there we were very hot and thirsty, possibly one of us was a bit grumpy and never before has a bar been so eagerly sighted. It even had its own pool with swim-up bar. If only we had known we would have brought our togs! We found seats at the bar, in the shade, in the stiff breeze of a nearby ‘big ass fan‘ (actual name), with a view of the lake. The beer was cold and we were happy again. Towards the end of the evening, after a few more beers and a tasty dinner, darkness began to fall and we were starting to contemplate our walk home when our bar server let slip that she was off home soon too. Knowing that she would have to drive past our camp, we brazenly asked for a lift and she agreed. Not that we had really left her with any sort of choice.

We otherwise spent a lazy few days floating around in the camp pool, keeping cool. There was not much else to do in the heat. It is sapping, and I’m not sure that I would ever get used to it if we lived somewhere as hot as this. Our Ozarks experience was a bit limited but at least we saw a little slice of it. Disappointingly, that didn’t include bumping into Jason Bateman.

24th – 29th June 2019

Kansas was the state that we had most anticipation about visiting but when people heard that it was on our route, they asked ‘why ?’ I can understand that reaction. At first glance, it doesn’t have much to offer the tourist. It is pretty monotonous terrain, with not much more than a few low undulations to break up the horizon. It has no major national parks or well known sites of historical interest. It is freaking hot and humid in summer and sits in the middle of the infamous ‘tornado alley’. Of course Dorothy knew all about that. For us, Kansas was a chance to leave the classic tourist routes and get back to the sort of road tripping that we enjoy most. Seeing the small towns, the quirky attractions along the way and witnessing a bit of ‘normal’ USA, whatever that may look like. Sometimes it looks vast, impressive and wonder-some. Sometimes it looks like a Walmart car park or a dilapidated home with junk piled up in the garden. US 50 continued as our guide and we left Colorado and rolled on into Kansas, the state with the strap line ‘Kansas, as big as you think’. (Although it is only the 13th biggest state by area.)

Kansas sits in the Central Time Zone, mostly. Except for four of its 105 counties on its western border, which remain in Mountain Time Zone with its neighbour, Colorado. How nuts is that? And who decided that was a good idea? It must be so confusing for people who go to work or school in the next county. In fact it seems about 13 states have time zone borders that don’t align with state borders. At least they all observe daylight savings time… oh wait, except for Arizona. Get your act together USA! And while you’re at it, can you please go metric. It really is about time you were with the rest of the world on this…oh wait, Britain is still a little bit imperial… Both of you then.

Where was I?

Kansas…

Home of the world’s largest hairball. We had to stop in Garden City to see this. It is housed in a small museum in a park, next to one of the most impressive municipal swimming pools I have ever seen. It is so large that you can windsurf on it (if you are good at turning, I imagine). The hairball was removed from the stomach of a steer in a nearby abattoir in 1993, and at the time was 55lbs. (24.9 kg). Now it is lighter as it has dried out. We toured the whole museum looking for this exciting thing, imagining that it wound be artfully displayed in its own cabinet, but couldn’t see it. Just as we were about to ask the ‘lady at the desk’ if it had been removed, we saw it. It was just plonked on the desktop next to her, balanced in a in a brass pot. You could touch, but not pick it up. It felt like velvet and was about the size of a basket ball.

We were underwhelmed, but I think our expectations had been artificially elevated. We rolled on.

Next destination? Dodge City. There really was only one reason to go to Dodge City, (well two, if you count needing to stop somewhere for the night,) and that was to…

“…get the hell out of Dodge…”

Dodge was a wild west town, an important hub for travel, trains and trade in the mid-late 1800s. Cows were the main commodity and this attracted gunslinging cowboys to the town. At the end of a long day’s work of doing cow stuff, the bars, gambling halls and brothels provided other recreational activities. The town was a booming frontier town until various quarantine laws moved the cow business further west in the later years of the 19th C. It was immortalised in the long-running TV series ‘Gunsmoke’ which spawned the now well known phrase. Our campsite was even called ‘Gunsmoke’ and greeted us with an archway adorned with a large ply-wood smoking revolver. Welcome!

After a month of relentless rain, summer has finally arrived to this part of the world with a vengeance. The daytime temperatures are now consistently above 90F/32C and this really affects daily life. It is now too hot to do anything physical outside, so the exercise levels have dwindled for the time being, and the AC unit in Tin Can is getting nearly constant daytime use. It is a bit too noisy to run at night. It is quite sapping and any opportunity to swim is taken.

Having ‘got out of Dodge’ we had a great drive, continuing along the mostly dead straight US 50 across the Kansas plains. There were huge wind farms with hundreds of turbines, miles and miles of maize and wheat fields and here the scattered nodding donkeys are pumping irrigation water rather than oil. The small towns along our way were mostly based around the huge grain silos of a farm which were built right up to the rail tracks to allow easy loading of grain onto the trains. The road brought us to a town called Hutchinson, the location for our next overnight stop. It is known for two main things: Strataca and The Cosomosphere.

Strataca is a salt museum, built in a disused salt mine, 200 m/600ft underground. The worlds largest deposit of rock salt was discovered under this area and mining began in the 1920s. The mine covers 980 acres in total and now open to the public as a museum, not only for the story of salt mining, but also as a climate controlled depository for old cellulose film and historical film costumes. We were not here for Strataca.

The Cosmosphere was the drawcard for our stop here. It is an amazing, world class space museum and scientific educational facility, in the middle of blimmin’ Kansas. It started in the 1960s as the small hobby project of one woman, Patty Carey, who had a passion for space and set up a small observatory in a disused chicken shed on the Kansas State Fairgrounds. One thing led to another and in its present incarnation it now houses the largest collection of Russian space hardware anywhere outside of Moscow, and had a pretty impressive collection of US stuff too. This included the actual, fully restored space capsule of Apollo 13 “Houston, we have a problem..”‘ fame, and a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 capable spy jet filling the lobby.

It also runs camps for adults here where you can do mock astronaut training. Something to think of when you can’t decide what to get your loved one for Christmas…We killed half a day here, and it was very impressive. This was the 3rd space themed museum of our travels. It was also air-conditioned, which was a big plus.

Post-Cosmosphere, our journey continued a short distance through neat and tidy Mennonite country to another short, one night stop in a small and slightly shabby RV park in a smudge on the map called Hesston. The next day saw us heading to the Tall Grass Prarie, a National Preserve, rather than a National Park. This is a new model for National Parks where the land remains in private ownership but is managed by the National Park Service. Tall grass praries used to cover about 400,000 square miles of the Great Plains, with barely 4% remaining, mainly here, in the Flint Hills of Kansas. They have a bison herd here, allegedly. We arrived 10 minutes too late to catch the tour bus through the park, and private vehicles were not permitted, so what did we do in the 90F plus heat? Yup. Go for a walk. After about 3.5 of shadeless miles walked, 2 L of water drunk and only two distant bison seen through binoculars we made it back to the visitors centre alive. Mad dogs and Englishmen….

Having anticipated the ongoing heat we had booked our next two nights at Eisenhower State Park which is on another reservoir. We could swim and keep cool…or that was the plan. The park was great, but unfortunately all the excess rain of the previous month had caused a lot of flooding and the reservoir levels had risen dramatically. This had swamped half the campsites, submerged some of the park roads and, horror of horrors, obliterated the nearby swimming beach. There was another swimming beach on another smaller lake about 3 miles away and as the temperature peaked, we decided to cycle there to cool down ( a slight oxymoron…) Luckily I checked for directions at the park office before we set off and were told that the other lake had closed for swimming that morning due to high e.coli levels. Good news- we discovered this prior to hot 6 mile round trip cycle. Bad news- no swimming…or was there???!! It transpires that if you ignore ‘road closed’ signs, road submerged by an overfull reservoir makes for a perfectly acceptable swim spot for overheated humans on a hot Kansan day. The inquisitive fish were slightly disconcerting though.

We met one of our nearby co-campers during the day, a chap who was setting up his trailer by himself, with his wife to arrive later when she had finished work. He needed a bit of help lifting something, so Nick obliged and then we got chatting. He was lovely and interesting guy, a Grateful Dead super-fan with a penchant for tie dye t-shirts and band-themed wall hangings. He also had an unparalleled ability to continually talk without drawing breath. We joined them both for a drink later that evening and he generously shared his favourite bourbon with us whilst maintaining constant, relentless, high volume story telling. We finally extracted ourselves at midnight, exhausted, without really having got a word in. His wife was surprisingly sane despite it all.

The next morning we moved on and towards Missouri. Kansas had been very hot but thankfully tornado-free. There are some things we don’t need to experience…

17th – 24th June 2019

We left Ouray after a hearty brunch at the on-site cafe, headed north to the town of Montrose to restock the fridge and then on to our next stop, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. All in all this was a very achievable day’s journey of 50 miles. The park is one of the lesser known National Parks and off the usual beaten track, a fact made obvious by the distinct paucity of rental RVs. It is however a little gem. Known as Colorado’s own mini version of the Grand Canyon, it is a deep, steep and narrow canyon carved through solid bedrock by the Gunnison River, exposing 2 billion year old Precambrian rock. ‘Black’ describes the colour of the walls which, due to its shape, are in shadow for all but the middle of the day. Big Dave hauled us up the hill to the plateau-top of the canyon, guzzling through the small amount of fuel we had left. We had forgotten to fill up in Montrose, but were quietly confident (in a ‘fingers crossed’ sort of way) that we would have enough to get us to the next petrol station on our way out in the morning…surely?

We just had one night planned here, a basic National Park campsite with the sites hidden in amongst the low level trees and shrubs. The deer seemed completely unfazed by the presence of campers and we saw several wandering freely through the area. There were warnings about black bears, but at this time of the year it is the Musk deer that are to be feared, with reports of does attacking people to protect their fawns. Ok.

We filled our afternoon with a hike from camp, along the rim of the canyon to the park visitors centre, then along another trail that headed a short way down into the canyon, then back up again, then hit a linking trail that took us back to camp. This was a very pleasant five miles, very devoid of fellow hikers and gave us some great views of the canyon and river. We arrived home having avoided being savaged by any angry deer with a good few calorie credits under our belt. The evening unfortunately brought with it a cold breeze which cut short the open air portion of our evening and after our BBQ dinner was cooked, we headed in to eat and watch a DVD.

In the morning we headed back down the hill and nervously drove in a fuel efficient way to the next town, and the nearest petrol station. (Of course we got there without drama, but he is such a thirsty beast.) This was the start of our trip along a portion of US 50, a 3000 mile road across the middle of the country from Ocean City, Maryland to West Sacramento, California. Along its way it is mostly single carriageway and passes through hundreds of small old towns, revealing a real cross-section of rural life in USA. Time magazine devoted nearly an entire issue to it in July 1993. There is a portion through Nevada that is called ‘America’s loneliest road’ as it offers up miles and miles and miles of nothing but open road and views. It, and we, were headed in the same direction, so we decided to use it as our trail to follow for a while and see a bit more of the nitty gritty of the world as we rolled on. It did not disappoint.

We found our petrol station in a tiny settlement called Cimarron attached to ‘Jim Newberry’s Store’. It had one old fashioned analogue fuel pump and the shop sold a variety of things from rocks to cigarettes, and many dusty items in between. I had to step over an aged, portly dog who was lying on the welcome mat to get into the shop. He ignored me. Jim was in residence and holding the fort. He could have been anything from 55 to 75, although I suspect younger than he looked. I imagine life is fairly hard in Cimarron, Colorado. He was the third generation of his family to own the store, his grandmother having opened it 79 years ago. She must have been a hardy soul. Full of fuel, we continued east.

Our next stop was only another one hour’s drive from here, a camp on the shores of Blue Mesa Lake in a National Recreation Area. The lake is a reservoir created by a dam in the Gunnison River downstream from the Black Canyon and is a mecca for fisherfolk and other boaties. It was another basic campsite with no trees and a brisk warm wind blowing across the lake. Connectivity was also zilch. No TV, no cell reception and no internet. Being completely off line in a modern world is a bit disconcerting, but good for the soul. I don’t really need to know what’s happening with the UK conservative party leadership battle and the ongoing machinations of Brexit. Or what Donald tweeted today. Total US-Iranian diplomatic meltdown and the threat of nuclear conflict? Not important when you have a pleasant vista across a lovely lake to gaze at. And I definitely didn’t need to know anything that the Facebook algorithms might think that I needed to know. The only pertinent fact that would directly affect us was knowing the weather forecast. In our 48 hours here we, in no particular order:

1.Walked the half mile to the Visitors Centre to check the weather forecast. (Sunny and breezy to continue.) Then walked to the nearby boat ramp and marina facility to check it out. (Amazing, well maintained with toilets, showers, parking for about 100 cars and trailers and putting any NZ facility to utter shame) It also had a bar/restaurant which was sadly closed both days that we were here.

2.Walked down to the lake shore for a ramble. It was very rocky, with one small beach area, but with multiple areas to park and picnic and generally ‘recreate’. The lake which had been at historically low levels last year had had a major top-up from the melt water of this past winter’s massive snow pack, but still looked a distance from full.There were a few boats that had braved the wind and were out fishing.

3.Did a variety of small jobs, played a few games of scrabble (2:0 to Nick) and, wait for it, read some actual books. Nick might have had an afternoon nap, which was entirely justified given the slow pace of the day. Contrary to the weather forecast, it rained for a bit.

After two nights here we rolled on again. This time we had a reasonably long drive by our standards, but it was so quiet and scenic that it flew past without feeling taxing. We had a imperceptibly slow climb from 7,500ft to a 10,100ft pass over a distance of about 70 miles. Big D didn’t even notice. The road descended to a flat valley plateau at 8000ft and the roads became very straight. After a few 90 degree turns we arrived at our next destination, Grand Dunes National Park, or at least to our RV park just down the road from it. The sites were all in a single line, up on a ridge with amazing views of the dunes and the immense flat valley floor.

The dunes were created by the prevailing sou’westerly winds picking up sand particles as they blew across the San Luis Valley until it gets to the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the sand is heaped up into these spectacular dunes, the tallest in North America. The brisk wind was a constant presence during our stay here and prevented all notions of barbecues, camp fires, awning use, open windows to windward, unguarded bowls of potato chips on picnic tables etc. We gained a bit of relief from the buffeting at about 10.30pm that evening when a very large motor home pulled up in the next space, casting a very welcome wind shadow over us and we slept much better for it. Connectivity was still non existent here.

The sun rose, and we surfaced a mere two hours later to start our day. It was a morning for a breakfast sandwich to fuel us for the hours ahead. (I can’t remember if I have written about the splendour that is The Breakfast Sandwich Maker yet. Perhaps it needs its own post) Our plan was to cycle the 3.5 miles into the park in the morning and then go for a hike. Getting there, down wind, was going to be easy. Coming home, not so much. We hurtled to our destination, joined the short queue of cars to get in to the park and left the bikes tied up near a bored looking dog at the visitors centre. First we walked about a mile to the Medano Creek.

This is the hotspot of the whole place at this time of year. In spring the meltwaters cause the usually dry and very shallow creek to flow again, often with pulses of water that cause little waves, like a downstream bore. People flock here to frolic in the water, equipped for what looks like a day at the beach. Cars discharge picnic packed cool boxes, sun shades, rubber rings, buckets and spades, dogs and excited children. It was mayhem and not at all like your usual dusty desert plateau at 8000ft surrounded by snow capped mountains. The other thing to do from this area was to hike up the dunes, the highest peak being 750ft. The hardy/crazy souls that were tackling this feat looked like ants from where we were. It must have been very heavy going: loose sand underfoot, hot sun overhead and fairly thin air. We opted out and walked up the creek in bare feet instead. The map seemed to suggest that this was passable for about a mile and a half up to another carpark, so we pushed on, leaving the crowds behind. The map was sort of right, but it was a bit sporting in parts where the creek narrowed and got a bit rocky. Eventually we rejoined dry land, put our shoes back on and completed the loop hike back to the visitors centre. The cycle home was a challenge due to the stiff headwind and our inadequate numbers of red blood cells for this altitude. We arrived at our site gasping, sweaty, and in need of a shower. That evening Nick took me out for dinner at the small on-site restaurant. To be generous, it was a very mediocre meal, but at least the beer was cold.

The next day we continued our journey eastwards. The wind had settled a bit, ramping the temperature up by several degrees and it continued to steadily rise as we gradually descended from 8000ft down to to 3000ft during the day’s drive. Today we were leaving the mountains and entering the lesser known flat plains of Eastern Colorado. I had always thought that Colorado was entirely a mountain state, but a huge swathe of it sits in the High Plains, the westernmost portion of the Great Plains, home to all of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, and to portions of Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Texas. In this area Colorado is sparsely populated, hot in summer and cold in winter and mainly given over to agriculture. This seemed mainly to consist of cultivating the land to grow animal feed, harvesting it and then feeding it to to the livestock who were being intensively farmed in stinking shadeless muddy corals. Modern farming seems to have lost the plot.

Our last stop in Colorado was at another State Park on John Martin reservoir, the largest body of water in Colorado. Our campsite was just below the dam of the same name, both named for the US Representative John Martin who in the 1930s advocated for legislation to allow the building of the dam as a flood control measure. He died in 1939, the year construction began. We were hoping that the Corps of Engineers had done a good job and that the dam would hold for the two nights of our stay here.

We navigated here with a good old fashioned paper map as there seemed to be an ongoing complete lack of 3G coverage here, despite getting cell reception back. Our first evening here delivered a spectacular electrical storm with continual rolling thunder for several hours. Luckily this hit after we had managed to cook and eat dinner outside. Each site had a small shelter under which we kept dry for another half hour, watching the. rain slowly douse the campfire before we called it quits and escaped inside.

The next day we explored the area around the reservoir and dam on our bikes. Half the roads were gravel, and it was windy again, but we managed to get 12 miles of cycling done by the time we got back for lunch and a lazy afternoon. That evening was more clement, but far less exciting and we sat out around the fire until dark.

Tomorrow to Kansas.

10-17th June 2019

The mountains of Colorado were a’calling and, as an antidote to the free-wheeling of the first two weeks of the trip, we booked a whole week’s stay in the town of Ouray. Plucked from reasonable obscurity by my chief travel planner, Ouray (pronounced ‘You-ray’ by the locals, but always ‘Hoo-ray’ by my internal dialogue) turned out to be an amazing little town.  Known as the Switzerland of America and with a permanent population of about 4,500 it is situated at about 7,800ft elevation at the southern end of a valley, surrounded by three 13,000ft snow-capped peaks. The only road out to the south being the reasonably scary Red Mountain Pass, also known as the ‘Million Dollar Highway’. This is infamous in these parts, being very tortuous and having significant sections where the steep drop-offs have no guard rails.  (I wonder if that is where it got its name, having only a one million dollar budget that didn’t stretch to essential safety features?) We arrived by the less stressful northern route but all week were impressed/amazed/astounded to see what type and size of vehicles were tackling the pass.

We took a lesser travelled route from Moab to Ouray, using a smaller road to cut across into Colorado. There were a few climbs and descents but nothing too dramatic, and the scenery subtly changed from the desert canyons and expansive plateaus of Utah to the more intimate forests, hills and snow capped peaks of Colorado. 

As the landscape changes with a state border crossing, so do the laws, culture and politics. Colorado is much more liberal and less religious; where Utah has strict alcohol legislation and even state-controlled liquor stores, Colorado has full legalisation of recreational cannabis.  These big differences between states is one of the things that makes travelling through America so interesting. It also makes it more of a miracle that the states are united at all. It is like a very big blended family with a lot of large and clashing personalities. No wonder politics are so complicated here. 

Anyway, back to Ouray. 

Our camp was on the river, about half a mile from town. The river in question was in full angry, snow-melt, torrent mode but was not tipped to break its banks, which was reassuring. It was very loud too so we were glad to have opted for a slightly cheaper site a few rows back from the premium riverside ones.  The whole area was ringed by majestic pine-tree clad cliffs, with snow-capped peaks not too far away.

Camp was connected to town by a riverside walk and had its own small but respected cafe that did breakfasts, and steak dinners at the weekends.  Ouray itself boasts a fantastic, newly renovated, sulpur-free hot-spring pool complex. This has a variety of hot-pools fed by the spring, and also an outdoor heated 8 lane 25m lap pool filled with municipal water. The hot-pools were always fairly busy, but the lap pool strangely empty.  During our week here we had a couple of visits to the pools, knocking off 1km each time in our private lap pool, followed by some time soaking up some mountain sunshine on loungers.  The pools create a bit of a beachy vibe in the town and it was not unusual, but a bit bizarre nonetheless, to see people wandering up the main stream in swim wear, wrapped in towels.  

Another of the Ouray’s assets was a loop hiking trail that circumnavigated the town, following the contours of the hills that surrounded it with several connections back to civilisation along the way. It was only about 7 miles long, but the terrain was steep and tricky for a lot of the way so it took us four hours. Because the town is visible for the majority of the hike it somehow felt less challenging that it actually was, and the rolling thunder and light rain in the past hour gave less cause for concern too. 

The chief outdoor activity of locals and tourist alike in this area is bashing around on off-road trails in an ATV or Jeep.  Many of the higher trails and passes were still shut due to snow, even though it was now the middle of June. There was a lot of snow this past winter, between 200 and 600% above average, depending on whom you spoke to. There still seemed to be a thriving industry in ATV and Jeep tours and rentals, and we were not immune! We decided to rent something fun for a day and do some exploring.

Big Dave could have managed the trail that we did, but it would have been so uncomfortable. His suspension is geared to carrying the 2.5 ton weight of Tin Can, with 8 massive leaf springs. On uneven terrain, without Tin Can, Big D is a bone-rattler of epic proportions and he is not particularly manoeuvrable.  We took possession of our basically brand new Jeep Wrangler one evening, ready for an early start the next morning.  Our route the next day took us along a route called Last Dollar Rd. It is a proper county road rather than a true off-road trail, but you wouldn’t know it to drive it. It had only opened the day previously due to the snow, and was challenging enough for us to be fun without being too scary. We didn’t want to break the Jeep or ourselves. It was about 20 miles long and cut off a big corner of the road that went into the swanky mountain town of Telluride.

This was place that Nick has always wanted to visit ever since he read an article  in 2013 about a bar that was serving a Bloody Mary garnished with a chicken slider on a stick. It was called the ‘Smack Mary’ That sounded just about his idea of cocktail heaven. Unfortunately the bar has since shut and the intoxicating possibility of a boozy drink married so closely with a delicious snack had disappeared. But the dream of visiting Telluride never died. So we bashed across what felt like the the top of the world in our jolly green jeep, far away from any other humans, happy as pigs in the proverbial. 

We had overestimated our journey time somewhat, and arrived in Telluride by 10.15am. Perchance our picnic sandwiches would not be needed.  This is a very well-healed little town with some seriously priced real estate and a collection of celebrity residents; Tom Cruise, Oprah and Kevin Costner are amongst those who have homes here. The liberal side of this part of Colorado was plainly visible in the rainbow flags lining the main street in support of Gay Pride month. A gondola from town takes you up a small mountain and a modest ski-field. This is used by tourists, hikers and mountain bikers in summer and is free at this time of year. We went up, and came down again, had a coffee, mooched up and down the main street and the shops, had a lovely lunch, then drove home via the road. Once back in Ouray we had some time left before we had to return the Jeep so we set off south to see what all the fuss was about regarding the mountain pass road. After about 5 miles of driving up into the pass Nick was a blithering mess as his vertigo had kicked in with a vengeance.  It really was quite scary. Your sensible head says “You will not randomly and without explanation suddenly steer to the right and drive off this cliff to a fiery death of twisted metal”, but the possibility of that happening is only 3 feet away. So whether your brain plays games with you or not, whether you freak out or not, it is rare to do something in life where the dangers are so obviously apparent. We turned around in a lay-by and headed back, comforted slightly by now being on the inside track of the road.  We returned the car in one piece and walked home.  

That evening Ouray hosted a free ‘music in the park’ event, right in town. A weekly event in June. There were a couple of bands, a beer tent, numerous food trucks and it was really well attended with hundreds of people turning up . Every one brought chairs or picnic rugs and there were masses of dogs too.  It was a great evening, although when the sun went behind the hill it got very cold. The warmest folk were either the ones dancing, or the ones who had been sensible and brought warm blankets.  We were deploying neither strategy to stave off hypothermia, and headed home after a few pints and having shared a brisket sandwich and the most delightful punnet of barbecued prime rib chunks smothered in warm blue cheese sauce, topped with blue cheese sprinkles. MMMMMmmmmm. 

All in all, we loved our stay here and it was a place we could have stayed much longer.  It had a small town feel, but felt that it was part of something bigger.  It was beautiful, buzzing without feeling busy and full of people who loved to call it home.  I wonder how much the real estate is here…..?

6th – 10th June

When we were last in the town of Moab over New Year it was very, very cold, snowy and consequently very quiet. The temperatures did not rise above freezing at all during the day and fell to -16C/3F at the lowest point at night. Despite TC’s heater and insulation, it was too cold for happy camping. Inside moisture management whilst trying to stay warm was time consuming and the first job of each day was to remove the sheets of frozen condensation from the inside of the windows.

These were self inflicted discomforts, I know, as we had deliberately traveled here in the winter, but it was still a bit miserable. Our reason for being here was to visit Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in the low season, but due to the US federal shutdown and then a big dump of snow, they were both closed. We left seek warmer climes, and vowed to return this next trip. So return we did. This was first place on our travels that we had returned to a second time. Now it was summer and much busier but I take dealing with the crowds over having to defrost a septic pipe outflow with a hairdryer any day…. As we rolled into Moab this time it was 30c/86F and gloriously sunny.

We had booked three nights here, and after a trip to the supermarket, we rolled up to our deluxe RV park to check in, looking forward to a cooling dip in its newly renovated pool. This was when it came to our attention that we had been absolute muppets. Our booking didn’t start until tomorrow and they were full to capacity. We had packed up and driven away from our perfectly lovely camp in Torrey this morning after only one night’s stay. We had forgotten that we had booked and paid for two nights. Oops. Now we found ourselves in a busy holiday town in peak season, looking for a last minute vacancy. The words ‘needles’ and ‘haystacks’ sprang to mind. We sat in Big Dave and made some hasty phone calls. By some miracle they had a one night vacancy at the park that we had stayed at over New Year. Crisis averted. It was only 200m up the road so we hot-footed up there, set up camp and were in their slightly utilitarian, but no less welcoming pool before you could say ‘idiots abroad’. The place was heaving, but we were just happy not to be parked up in a lay-by with no mains power to run the AC.

The next morning, all idiocy forgotten, we headed back to our original camp, paid the designated $10 for an early check-in (which was cheeky as it was already quite expensive) and did our first camper ‘offload’ in ages. In fact, looking back, we hadn’t done this since Fort Davis, TX at the end of November last year. It went smoothly and no cross words were spoken. Alway a bonus. I maintain that off-loading and re-loading Tin Can is the biggest test to our marriage in current times. Far more than living in a tiny space together and spending 24/7 in each other’s company. Those couples with moderately sized trailer-boats will have a small insight into this. After the long drive, the excitement of the off-load, and the with the heat climbing steadily again, the only thing to do was go to the pool. It was a lot fancier here and a very welcome escape from the heat and dust. Later, as it got a bit cooler, we jumped on the bikes and headed the 1.5 miles into town for a mooch about. Moab is a shrine to the outdoor activity crowd, be it rafting, biking, off-roading or hiking, and every other business caters to them. The other half of the businesses seemed to be selling t-shirts and the usual touristy tat. We walked the small main street, Nick got some new handlebar grips for his bike and we looked for a place to get a refreshing, late afternoon beer. This was easier said than done. This is Utah. The strict licensing laws in this state mean that most establishments that sell alcohol only have restaurant licences, so you can’t drink without ordering a meal too. Eventually we found a bit of a ‘spit and sawdust’ type place that had a bar licence, enjoyed a pint of the local brew, and suitably refreshed, peddled home.

We were on the road early in the morning to get ahead of the crowds and the heat and visit Canyonlands National Park, a 45 minute drive from Moab. As we steadily climbed up the entry road we seemed to be the only ones going in our direction with most of the traffic going the other way. It left us wondering what they knew that we didn’t. (The answer? Nothing. I think they were the folk that had come up purely to watch sunrise through the photogenic Mesa Arch. It must have been standing room only up there) Canyonlands is a bit of a Cinderella National Park. It is less trafficked than the better known Arches National Park, only having half the number of visitors annually. I had no expectations of what to expect at Canyonlands. Although the clue should be in the name, it sounds more like a theme park than what is is, which is a wilderness of sedimentary rock with hundreds of canyons and formations cut from the Colorado Plateau.

It is vast and the brain struggles to make sense of what the eyes can see. We filled our day with several shorter hikes rather than one long one. The first was to see the afore mentioned ‘Mesa Arch’, (which is very photogenic),

the second was up to an overlook, (a good walk with a surprisingly mediocre view) and the third was a flat-ish walk to the edge of the plateau to look down on one of the most amazingly expansive views that I have ever seen.

It was also our picnic location. Ne’er has a sandwich had such a stage. I am proposing that Canyonlands National Park be renamed Great Land of Canyons National Park. I think that this gives it more of the gravitas that it deserves. After tearing ourselves away from the vista we headed home via town for provisions, discovered the Moab Brewery, another place for a sneaky beer without having to eat, and then escaped to the campsite pool again. Life is tough.

The following morning we were up and out even earlier in order to visit the better known Arches National Park, the entrance of which is only about 4 miles from Moab’s northern limit. It has over 2000 natural sandstone arches within its boundaries, boasting the highest density of natural arches in the world, many of which are very accessible. These are the things that bring more than 1.5 million visitors to Arches each year and can make it unbearably busy in peak times. We hit the gates at 7.15am, joining an already significant stream of traffic going up the hill. The pay station booth was closed until 8am, making entry free. This might have been the other motivation for many people’s early start. We drove the entire length of the scenic drive to its end point, Devils Garden. Here there was a rapidly filling car park, it being the trailhead for a walk to see one of the most impressive arches, Landscape Arch.

This is the longest span of any natural arch in the world, at 290.1ft. It is very delicate, even more so since it has periodically shed a few sizeable lumps of rock over the past few decades. In the past one could walk right underneath it, but the Park Service has become a bit twitchy about the prospect of it falling down completely and have now fenced it off to prevent the squishing of unsuspecting arch tourists. Sensible.

The trail to Landscape Arch was well formed and well travelled, but once past it the trail instantly became a bit more sporting, involving a shimmy up a steep slick-rock path. This put off most of the bus-tour groups and less fit and able and so it was much quieter. We completed a really interesting 7 mile loop on a primitive trail, taking in a few more remote arches and rock formations.

A short part of the trail was along the top of a narrow ‘fin’ formation with no obvious way down until you were practically at the end. There were no safety rails and it was incredibly windy up there. My knees were knocking, but Nick bounded along it like a mountain goat. He’s the one with the worse vertigo. Go figure.

Fearful episodes aside it was beautiful and mostly spent in peaceful solitude. That was until we encountered a large group of ladies of a certain age on a tour. We could hear them long before we saw them. They were stood in a shrieking huddle atop a slick-rock saddle, plumb in the middle of the moderately dicey thoroughfare, taking an endless combination of selfies and group photos. Funny and annoying in equal measures. After our walk we found a rare quiet car park and had the first ‘Big Dave picnic, sat in the bed, admiring the view.

Due to our stupidness of accidentally arriving in Moab a day ahead of ourselves, we realised that we were now going to overlap for one night at this camp with our new Bryce Canyon friends, Janet and Bill. They rolled in mid-afternoon and after we had re-loaded Tin Can back atop Big D (again, happily, without harsh words or incidents), and done a plethora of little jobs, including changing a flat tyre on my bike, we surprised them with a knock on their door and arranged to share a few more drinks that evening. It was obvious that we had some differing opinions on politics, religion and general affairs of the heart, but we generally avoided these topics and consequently continued to get on very well!

The morning saw us move on again, this time to our first new state of this trip, Colorado.